Melbourne newspaer reports today that Ed Kuepper former lead guitarist with the Saints and a leading creative force in australia is joining the Bad Seeds to replace Mick Harvey.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/music/sticky-carpet/2009/02/...

Ed has has a 20 album catalogue of his own . I recommend the butterfly net compilation. And if you were to download 3 songs start with black ticket day, eveything I got and honey steels gold

His driving guitar with a healthy dose of distortion should bring back a bit of the Blixa sound lacking in recent times with the over reliance on Warren Ellis's dervish like violin. He should fit in well being older and accomplished. It will be interesting to see whether there is much collaboration on the writinig friont as he is highly productive. He is a pretty forceful personality so that could be a challenge.

As they say in the classics- an interesting move and certainly suggests that Nick cave is not done with the Bad Seeds for some time yet.